Senators GM Bryan Murray spent every day last week working the phones with his club stumbling, but he's not sure if he'll be able to find any help on the trade market.

While Murray would like to add a top-six forward and a defenceman for depth, he told the Sun he'd rather not give up anybody.

"When you do an evaluation of your team, you'd like to be mainly healthy and that's what I've been doing with (assistant GM) Tim (Murray) and (player personnel director) Brent (Flahr) and the coaches," Murray said before the 4-2 win over the Dallas Stars Friday night.

"I'm definitely not going to do something that affects us very much this year. Certainly, I'd give up a long-term project to get immediate help, but I'm not going to sacrifice that right now."

That hasn't stopped teams from calling. The talk is the Edmonton Oilers and Carolina Hurricanes are both interested in Joe Corvo.

While the Hurricanes want a puck-moving blueliner, the Oilers are trying to peddle either C Jarrett Stoll or LW Raffi Torres to the Senators. Both were scratched Friday.

Stoll is a restricted free agent making $2.2 million this season who is going to ask for a lot of money, while Torres has two years left on his deal at an average of $2.25 million per season.

Oilers GM Kevin Lowe has coveted Corvo since the summer after failing to get Wade Redden, who refused to waive his "no movement" clause.

Murray can't afford to give up a defenceman because the only options in Binghamton are Brian Lee and Lawrence Nycholat and he'd like to leave them there.

"It's very difficult to get a real good defencemen," said Murray. "That's the biggest commodity in the league."

As for goalies Ray Emery and Martin Gerber, who have been battling for the No. 1 job, Murray's heard suggestions he has to trade one of them.

"That's an easy comment for someone to make," said Murray. "It's difficult, No. 1, to make a trade for a goaltender, especially in the dollar range we're in. No. 2, what do you have to replace it? An adequate backup is not going to be $500,000, so you could maybe save half the money (Emery making $3.2 million and Gerber $3.7 million this season), but you'd take such a step backwards in ability.

NEED GOOD BACKUP

"When you come down the stretch and you have a freak injury or a guy not playing at 100%, you don't have an adequate backup. You have to have a second goalie (who) can play."

Emery and Gerber have been told to fight it out for playing time. The only team really looking for goaltending help is the Tampa Bay Lightning, but the Senators haven't been offered nearly enough.

"They both understand they're not going anywhere," said Murray. "They both want to play every night and it might be frustrating for one of the two guys, but the bottom line is: Until somebody comes to me and says: 'This is what I'll do for a goaltender,' I'm frozen there and I'm not disappointed that I am."